Yesterday, the sixth day of the Year of the Horse, the Post interviewed three locals and a foreign tourist to gauge whether their expectations of the holiday period matched reality.
While visitor numbers appeared to be very strong across major tourist areas, spending patterns and crowd distribution told a more nuanced story.
The Chinese New Year (CNY) began last Tuesday. The Chinese mainland’s nine-day CNY public holiday ends tonight. Macau’s three-day CNY public holiday lasted between Tuesday and Thursday last week.
Marjorie, 32, who works in a café near Rua do Campo, described business during the holiday period as “steady” but below last year’s turnover. “Actually, it’s not really that bad. It’s still okay. It reached more than our daily quota, but it’s much less compared to last year during the Chinese New Year,” she said.
For the first time, Marjorie’s café opened on the third day of the Spring Festival, a departure from its usual three-day closure. However, she noted that the additional opening did not translate into stronger-than-expected gains. “Even the aunties [regular female customers] they would normally give out lai see [but this time they didn’t], she said, adding that she also observed a subtle cultural shift, suggesting that holidaymakers’ customary spending felt more restrained this year.
Meanwhile, 20-year-old Stephanie spent much of the holiday with her family at Galaxy Macau in Cotai. She described heavy crowds at restaurants, cinemas and on buses. However, Stephanie was surprised by what she perceived as lighter casino traffic than normal during the Spring Festival, as the Chinese New Year is also known. “I went to the casino, only to find it wasn’t crowded at all, as if no one wants to gamble” she remarked.
Stephanie also attended a stand-up comedy show that, she said, was watched by an audience of 10,000, adding that crowd control even in Cotai was well managed. However, regarding the Tap Siac CNY market, she visited it on an afternoon and found the atmosphere lacking compared to the evenings. “It looks kind of strange without illuminations,” she said, reiterating her earlier criticism that many stalls were selling “Taobao content”. Even for original goods, Stephanie said, she felt “the quality was not as good as those in the biannual Craft Market event last year”.
Adam, 21, took a quiet approach to the CNY holiday period. “The first three days, I basically just stayed at home,” he said, avoiding large crowds. However, he observed through social media that tourist numbers were high. He recalled seeing packed border checkpoints while passing through them a day before the holiday, with travellers heading to Macau and Hong Kong. Compared with last year, Adam said, he was less inclined to join festivities. “Last year, I was more informed and more willing to go outside, but this year, due to work, I focused more on my part-time duties,” he said, adding that previous crowd experiences made him reluctant to venture out.
Meanwhile, 23-year-old Jean described his experience as satisfying. He watched the fireworks with his girlfriend and introduced her to the origins of CNY traditions. “It was worth it despite the crowded area,” he said. While noting that this year felt even more crowded than during his previous visit, he stressed that the overall experience remained positive.
Marjorie and Stephanie were interviewed by the Post in an article published on January 30 – https://www.macaupostdaily.com/news/27297.
Tourists sample free of beef jerky at a shop on Rua de S. Paulo close to the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ruins of St. Paul’s and Na Tcha Temple last night. – Photo: Khalel Vallo
